I love Rankin/Bass, but Mad Monster Party is mostly unwatchable in my opinion. It doesn't have quite the same charm as many of their other specials (maybe it was easier for them to create a sense of wonderment using Christmas more than any other holiday). At best it's on par with the story line of the Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, which was abysmal.
Special School: Halloween
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Kinda surprised you didn't mention Halloween Tree. I mean, it stars Leonard Nimoy and is written and narrated by Ray Bradbury, and it's actually pretty dark for a children's special, given that the plot is a bunch of kids in a race with Death (Nimoy) through time and space to find their recently-dead friend's soul.
Yeah, you know that one freaked me the hell out when I was 6.
Yeah, you know that one freaked me the hell out when I was 6.
I remember the "supernatural" halloween special (can't remember which series, but I'm pretty sure it was the same series that had a trippy-as-hell christmas special) in which instead of the usual creature-convention breaking stuff, they went all out with classic hammer horror monsters and tropes, along with applying a black-and-white filter. It was sheer genius.
Wow. EVERY time I read one of MovieBob's articles, I learn about something awesome that I have to go and buy on Amazon immediately. In this case, Ghostwatch!
Also:
Featuring Vincent Price as a corrupt undertaker who murders people at night so he can bury them in the morning, Peter Lorre as his bungling assistant - and Basil Rathbone as a man who, due to a medical condition, occasionally enters a coma so deep it is routinely mistaken for death!
Also:
Top notch stuff, thanks for sharing! Say, have you seen the ORIGINAL Comedy of Terrors?Kurow said:
Featuring Vincent Price as a corrupt undertaker who murders people at night so he can bury them in the morning, Peter Lorre as his bungling assistant - and Basil Rathbone as a man who, due to a medical condition, occasionally enters a coma so deep it is routinely mistaken for death!
Episode 05 of season 4, 'Monster Movie'. It was a brilliant episode, because in addition to being very funny it was a classic piece of misdirection - the entire episode, you're sitting there going "Yeah, this is obviously just the Trickster again" because the show really played it up as being his style. The reveal at the end about it being some unfortunate lonely shapeshifter who'd grown up being called a freak really threw me, I didn't see it coming at all.Doclector said:
I just do not get the Great Pumpkin. Being British, I'd never seen it before, but this Halloween my American girlfriend insisted on showing it to me. It just wasn't funny. It seems like one of those things where the appeal lies entirely in nostalgia; if you didn't see it when you were a kid and develop fond memories of it, seeing it for the first time at the age of 23 will just cause you to think "Wow, this really sucks".el_kabong said:
I suppose we could put it down to cultural differences. According to the lady friend, Halloween is actually a pretty big event in the US, whereas over here it's relatively minor. Students dress up and go out, but very few children go trick-or-treating (I saw 3 last night, one of whom was being dragged into the pub with his mother), and we don't do much of the stuff the Americans do. This weekend I carved my own pumpkin - admittedly, that was fun - and ate "carmel" apples (which is apparently the American pronounciation of caramel) and did various other Halloween traditions that don't really exist on this side of the pond. It was pretty weird.
Never knew the War of the Worlds adaptation that caused the scare was a Halloween special. Mission hugely succeeded then.
And I can't remember any of this from the descriptions but I do remember Tim Curry in that getup. I can hardly recall but I've seen a fair share of the episodes of the show that was from. I also vaguely remember being weirded out by the fact that the master witch was called a wizard (but that was later, when I saw the show again after having learned a bit of English).
I never cared for Charlie Brown. Didn't know who Dr. Seuss was until a couple years back when the Angry Video Game Nerd mentioned him and I looked it up.
Jeez, really does seem like a long time ago in a galaxy far away...
And I can't remember any of this from the descriptions but I do remember Tim Curry in that getup. I can hardly recall but I've seen a fair share of the episodes of the show that was from. I also vaguely remember being weirded out by the fact that the master witch was called a wizard (but that was later, when I saw the show again after having learned a bit of English).
I never cared for Charlie Brown. Didn't know who Dr. Seuss was until a couple years back when the Angry Video Game Nerd mentioned him and I looked it up.
Jeez, really does seem like a long time ago in a galaxy far away...
Hell, yes. I, too, wonder why no love for Halloween Tree? That holiday special was largely responsible for sparking my lifelong interest in the history behind our holiday traditions. And the story was absolutely brilliant. The loyalty displayed by Pip's friends still makes me tear up a bit.Jupiter065 said:
Remember not everyone who reads the Escapist comes from the US or Canada. Elsewhere we have our own classic Christmas TV.MovieBob said:
Haha, I was totally waiting for this one to be mentioned too. I have tons of really vague memories about this movie, but I think I liked it. Glad I finally remember what it was called.nerdsamwich said:
edit: And I do remember it being slightly creepy to me too. Probably cause it was so dark for a children's movie